 | Studies in bibliography |  |
I
Let us first have a look at the editions McKerrow made for Bang's Materialien
series. McKerrow was recommended to Bang by W. W. Greg in a
letter of February 9, 1903.[4]
Ten days later Bang wrote to McKerrow, for on
19th inst. and kind offer to include me among the collaborators in your
series of `Materialen' [sic],—an offer which I accept with many thanks"
(cf. Appendix).
A few months later, on May 8, 1903, McKerrow shows his possible interest
in editing Barnabe Barnes' The Devil's Charter. He asks Bang whether
he knows of any reprint of this work: "I can trace no reprint in England,
and it seems to me to be of some interest from its connection with the
Faust-story". A letter of June 11 tells us McKerrow is making a transcript of
The Devil's Charter, and at the same time we are told that the play is "of
some length running to 93 pages in the 410. (38 lines to the page, probably
about 3,400 lines altogether, excluding stage directions & c.)". A fortnight
later the transcription is finished, but McKerrow wants to read it through
before sending it to Bang, "as all the copies seem made up of sheets in different
degrees of correctness" (June 27, 1903). In October, McKerrow is proofreading
and returns proofs of sheets E and F with a couple of remarks, including
on the carelessness of the printer as to the distinction between the
letters e and c. About 25% of the e's look like c's: "The printer probably
cleaned them with a nail when they got choked with ink and so destroyed
the bar" (October 21, 1903).
In 1904 Barnabe Barnes' The Devil's Charter appeared as number 6 in
the series.[5]
In his introduction, McKerrow refers to the four copies (of the
only early edition—1607) he made use of. As I have mentioned elsewhere,
in this introduction he lays down one of the basic rules of analytical bibliography,
pointing out that the forme, not the sheet, is the unit of printing
(Introduction, p. XV-XVI). As a consequence, McKerrow gives a table of
"most corrected", "intermediate" and "least correct" sheets, divided in outer
and inner formes. For the text proper, he follows copy A, except for two
sheets.[6]
As to the method of his "reprint" (as McKerrow calls it; it is in fact a
new edition), "like other works in this series it is intended to represent as
accurately as possible in every respect the original" (p. XVIII). And indeed,
the 1607 text is followed page for page, with the original signatures and
catchwords, and with its misprints, which are corrected in the explanatory
notes (e.g. pp. 111, 113, 117). There are some modifications to the strict following
of the copy, as in the case of the distinction between e and c. When
an e was obviously required, the editor puts a c "only if it seemed fairly
certain that the wrong letter really had been used . . .". Further, though several
founts of commas are used in the original text, the editor does not distinguish
between them. It was also impossible to distinguish turned n's and
turned u's; and "no notice has been taken of the varying spaces between
words". As to stage directions and signatures, they "are placed so far as
proportions of the letters in the old and modern founts prevent absolute
accuracy in this respect".
Emendations proposed have been placed with the explanatory notes, "as
being more likely to be required by the reader" (pp. XVIII-XIX). Misprints
are also mentioned in the "Notes". "Textual notes" give the variants
between the different copies, with "the signature of each page . . . before
the number of the line" (p. [97]).
McKerrow's next edition in Bang's series dates from 1905, and is in fact
a product of the collaboration between Bang and McKerrow. Indeed, The
Enterlude of Youth has both editors on the title page.[7]
The edition is partly
in German, partly in English. From McKerrow's letters to Bang we get some
data as to genesis and plan of this work.
On December 15, 1903, McKerrow expresses his gladness at helping with
the edition of Enterlude: "it will only mean very little work at any rate, as
the whole thing is so short". At the same time, in this letter he gives a survey
of the four copies known to him: two copies of an edition printed by
Waley (W), one printed by Copland (C), and a (printed) fragment in the
library of Lambeth Palace (L).[8]
Both editions, as well as the fragment, are
undated. However, "as they all have wood-cuts it may with luck be possible
to date them pretty accurately". And indeed, in the introduction to the
edition, McKerrow gives indications on the date of the fragment on the
basis of the woodcuts: this, the oldest text, "was printed not earlier than
1528" (pp. XV-XVIII). As to the relationship of the three texts, McKerrow
comes to the conclusion that C and W are not connected directly to L, but
that there must be at least one intermediate edition.
As none of the three texts is superior to the others or of such a kind that
it can be taken automatically as a basis for an edition (p. XXI), the three
of them are reproduced "page for page and line for line with the originals"
(p. XV). Apparently this was on Bang's suggestion, since McKerrow writes
on February 27, 1905: "I have returned the Copland proofs. I had not
realised that we were going to have both texts in [full canceled] full but it
is just as well, I think—at any rate it absolves one to some extent of the
responsibility of deciding which should be rejected".
On May 4, 1905, McKerrow sends Bang, along with remarks on the
relationship of the three texts, a number of textual and other notes. As to
the textual notes, McKerrow expresses his doubts about how and where they
have to be put, as Bang already commented upon some in his explanatory
notes (the "Erläuterungen"). Perhaps some notes have to be given in both
places? Or: "One might of course given [sic] only variants in the text notes
and leave misprints for the others, as I did in D[evil's] Ch[arter] but in that
case I do not quite see how one would deal with misprints in C, which
that they are not errors in the new edition. For safety's sake, the "misprints
occurring in C alone" are given in a separate list in the edition proper (pp.
[70]-[71]). As to the explanatory notes, "I really know very little about the
early plays so have not been able to add anything of value", McKerrow
writes in the same letter. Still he gives a remark on Humility's words in
lines 153-156 of the play. According to him, the character Humility is in
all likelihood not on stage at that moment. McKerrow suggests that we have
here "a trace of an older version in which the character took a more prominent
part, and that this single speech was left by inadvertence". Bang does
not take over the suggestion, and simply states at line 153: "Die Bühnenweisung
Humilitye (für Charitie) ist jedenfalls nur Druckfehler [The stagedirection
Humilitye (for Charitie) is in any case a misprint]" (p. 82).
In the "Textual notes" in the edition proper, McKerrow gives "Notes
on Waley's edition (W), with such variant readings as are not merely meaningless
misprints from Copland's edition (C) and from the Lambeth Palace
fragment (L)". He also mentions that words divided into two parts, nowadays
printed as one (for instance, for sake), are included in the notes (p.
[65]). There must have been some remark in this respect by Bang, since
McKerrow writes on August 4, 1905, that he did not mean to say that "for
sake" is a misprint, he simply meant to show that such cases "were not—as
some might otherwise suppose—errors in our reprint". A few days later
(August 8), he informs Bang that he "added a note at the head". The note
probably consists of the last sentences of the introductory statement, in
which McKerrow expresses his fear that if forms like "for sake" would not
be marked, readers might think them to be errors in the present edition;
at the same time he states "that such division of words was extremely common
at a somewhat earlier period" (p. [65]).
In conclusion, it is important to note that Bang and McKerrow publish
the three texts in full (with some restriction for the fragment, of course), and
that they do not give an eclectic text (although in this case it would have
been perfectly justified, as there are no authorised versions).
In a letter of May 31, 1906, McKerrow informs Bang that seventeen
plays, "the property of a gentleman in Ireland" have turned up, and will
soon (on June 30) be sold at Sotheby's. More specifically McKerrow mentions
the plays Wealth and Health, Impatient Poverty and John the Evangelist.
A month later, on July 3, McKerrow writes that the British Museum
has been able to buy all it wanted, including the three plays mentioned,
and he informs Bang that it is possible that Greg will publish the plays. At
the same time he refers to the new society Greg intends to set up (The
Malone Society). Greg's edition "will however, I understand, be a mere reprint
without introduction or notes, so will leave the way open for a more
elaborate edition if you care to do one".[9]
McKerrow is prepared to transcribe
new society will "interfere as little as possible with lines of work which you
have taken up, so that the two series may not clash"; the edition of Impatient
Poverty will be left to Bang. The Malone Society was founded on July
30. The next day McKerrow confirms that he will transcribe Impatient
Poverty for Bang "next week", but in a letter of August 5, he has to report
that the copy has been sent to the binder.
There are apparently no letters from McKerrow to Bang left from the
period between August 5, 1906, and March 9, 1907. Surprisingly, at the end
of March McKerrow himself is working on the edition of Impatient Poverty!
From March 29 until April 8, 1907, Bang almost daily sends remarks
and notes to McKerrow concerning the edition of Impatient Poverty: six of
Bang's postcards from this rather short period are present in the archive
because McKerrow returned them to Bang.[10]
In a number of remarks Bang
wants to prove that some word forms in the play are clearly "Northern". In
his card stamped on April 8, he puts it firmly: "I have not the least doubt
that Imp. Pov. was written in the North". McKerrow has a more differentiated
approach. In his introduction he speaks about "a northern element
in the piece", but that does not mean that we can "with safety assign it to
any particular locality". According to him it is quite possible that the play
was originally Scottish and afterwards revised by a Southerner, or Northern
English written down by a Londoner (p. XVI). Moreover, in the notes McKerrow
sometimes explicitly points to southern word forms (e.g. p. 51: "414,
415 be] i.e. been. The form appears to be distinctively southern"; p. 64:
"1033 redemeth] The -eth termination of plural of the present tense is of
course one of the chief marks of Southern English"). On the whole, McKerrow
was very cautious to draw conclusions from the spelling or word
forms as to the identity of an author or the location of a work.[11]
In this edition of Impatient Poverty, there is no distinction between
textual and explanatory notes; they have been put together (as there is only
one copy left of this play, there was no question of giving variants). As to
the text itself, it is again a page-for-page reprint, and the editor has "endeavoured
to reproduce the original text as exactly as possible, including
all misprints. The more important of these, but not minor errors of punctuation,
will be found corrected in the notes" (p. XIV). Along with the notes,
there is an index.
The edition of this text of 1560 was finally published in 1911 as number
introduction and the notes to Bang, "at last" as he says. "You will see that
I have used most of the notes & suggestions which you sent me; but in a
few cases I couldn't get satisfactory evidence that the form in question was
specially northern". On April 3 he adds a note to his letter, stating that he
sends the index as well. As an expression of thanks, McKerrow records his
indebtedness to Bang in the introduction to the edition (p. XV).
As far as the three plays hitherto discussed conform to the principles of
the Materialien series, McKerrow wants to give a text representing the original
as accurately as possible, whether there is only one copy left or more. In
the latter case, either the different copies are printed, or the text of the
chosen base copy is edited carefully and replaced by "corrected" formes when
there have been press corrections.
Barnabe Barnes, The Devil's Charter. Edited from the quarto of 1607 by R. B. McKerrow.
Materialien . . ., 6. Louvain, 1904.
The Enterlude of Youth nebst Fragmenten des Playe of Lucres und von Nature.
Herausgegeben von W. Bang und R. B. McKerrow. Materialien . . ., 12. Louvain, 1905.
In a letter of February 11, 1904, McKerrow informs Bang that Mr. Macbeth has at
last received permission to photograph the fragment.
In fact Greg edited The Interlude of John the Evangelist and The Interlude of
Wealth and Health in the Malone Society Reprints (cf. De Smedt, p. 218).
Cf.: "I return the post-cards in case you would like to add anything from them"
(McKerrow in a letter dated April 2, 1911).
Cf. McKerrow in one of his lectures from 1928: "It would at any rate, after 1590—
perhaps after 1580—be quite unsafe to take the spelling of any ordinary printed book as
representing that of its author, or to deduce from the spellings of any anonymous printed
work anything as to the identity of its author, or even as to his age, education, or the part
of the country from which he came" (McKerrow, "The Relationship of English Printed
Books to Authors' Manuscripts during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (The 1928
Sandars Lectures)", ed. Carlo M. Bajetta, Studies in Bibliography 53 [2000]: 1-65 [p. 39]).
| Studies in bibliography | |